Author Archives: Jeff Xilon

Some Flash Fiction: In Response to a Pick a Setting, Write a Story Challenge

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Finally doing another terribleminds.com flash fiction challenge. This one required us to use one of a selection of settings again. I won’t tell you which I chose until the end. I’m calling this one:

Tick Tock

Tick Tock. Tick Tock.

The clicks and clacks echoed through the all too familiar pass and it sounded to Captain Davis like they still had the full regiment with them, instead of less than half. The sound would bolster his spirit in any place but this.

As the soldiers picked their way along the rough path Captain Davis wrestled with Colonel Coleman’s confidence like a hound would a piece of rawhide. How could the man seem so sure of himself? They were retreating at best and routed at worst. And this pass! Davis had done everything he could to turn the Colonel away from it, yet it was Davis’ own successful retreat through the pass three months ago that drove the Colonel to it. The irony chaffed at Davis and he couldn’t stop picking the scab it left.

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Reading Old Comics: Swamp Thing and Hellblazer

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As I mentioned somewhere here before I’m a fan of comics and a fan of digital comics from Comixology. One of the most enticing things for me about digital comics is the ability to go back and read older material that I may have missed for any number of reasons. In the case of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer the main reason I missed out on them was because I was 3 and 8 years old when these series started and, frankly, if I somehow had heard of them and my parents let me read them, well, they wouldn’t have been doing a very good job as parents. These titles come from Vertigo and nowadays are rated 17+ for good reason.

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Looking For Beta-Readers To Join Me In An Experiment

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Hello any and all,

I’ve recently “finished” a new story and I’d like to try a little experiment with it. You see, when I say “finished” I mean I’ve done a first draft with one editing pass. My next usual step is to ask a few close friends to read through it and give me some feedback. These are my beta-readers, there are three of them and I’ve already sent the story off to them.

What I’d like to try is getting a wider circle of beta-readers to give me feedback, and that’s where you come in. If you are reading this, and interested in helping me out then I’d like to share this new story with you and hear what you think about it. I’d also like to use this as an opportunity to try out google drive.

Still with me? Ok – the story I’ve just finished clocks in at about 3,300 words and is probably best pigeonholed as Science Fiction Horror. I am looking for a maximum of 10 extra readers. Frankly, there probably aren’t 10 people interested in helping my out this way, but just in case I’m putting that limit up front.

If you would like to help me out in this (and I fully acknowledge that you would be doing me a great favor) then please contact me through the contact page above, or email me at jxilon [at] hotmail [dot] com, or leave a comment below with a real email I can reach you at. I will then share the story with you on google drive, which is where you will also be able to leave comments.

I’ll also share a small document with you giving some guidelines for giving feedback on the story but I’ll also say this here: I am not looking for hugs and congratulations. Sure, I want to hear what you like about the story, but I really need to hear what you don’t like about it. It’s the things that don’t work I need to identify and fix before moving on to the next stage with this story.

That’s all for now, I hope to hear from some of you.

On Learning to Love Jazz and Wanting to Love it More

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One of the more interesting, for me anyway, side effects of my recent commitment to writing is my new-found love of Jazz.

I had a short-lived flirtation with Jazz back in my high school days. I was a member of my school’s concert band (don’t laugh – it got me to Vancouver, New York and Paris) and several of my friends were a part of that and the school’s much smaller jazz style band. I remember that our teachers pointed us to a jazz concert series that would be taking place at the local University one year and a couple friends and I were the only ones I knew who decided to take advantage of it. I really enjoyed the music I heard going to those shows but I didn’t really stick with Jazz any further than that. At the time exploring music wasn’t quite so easy or cheap as it is now.

Fast forward to a few months ago and I decided that I wanted some music I could listen to while writing. The problem I quickly found was that I can’t write when I’m listening to music with lyrics. Other people’s words coming in my ears when I’m trying to get my own words out of my head just doesn’t work well. There are some modern albums with vocals, such as Bon Iver’s Bon Iver or Radiohead’s Kid A that I can listen to when writing. On albums like those the lyrics are just another part of the overall sound and easy to block out. There are also some classic rock albums, such as Quicksilver Messenger Service’s Happy Trails that are pretty much just instrumental pieces, but I’m going to leave off with the non-jazz albums there. That can be a post for another day.

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Comics: Masks & Mobsters #1

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A little while ago I gave my thoughts about the new comics company monkeybrain comics’ roll-out titles. Those can be found here. The company’s newest creator owned title is Masks & Mobsters and its my favorite of the titles so far.

It’s written by Joshua Williamson (@Williamson_Josh) and the artist for this first issue is Mike Henderson (@MikeSHenderson), though the info page says that there will be a rotating cast of artists. I’m sure the other artists to come will all do great but I’m definitely looking forward to more issues drawn by Mike Henderson. The art is black and white evokes a great sense of mood.

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I’m back.

Status

Hey, I know this blog doesn’t have a lot of traction yet, but there are at least a few people following it through Google Reader or other means. For those I just wanted to saw sorry nothing happened over the last week. My wife and I decided to spend the last week doing a crazy amount of house work. The place is starting to look nice. We’ve got some new furniture, thrown out some old, rearranged every room, hung some new curtains and rid ourselves of a lot of junk. It’s been nice to get it done while we both had a lot of time to use up this past week, but it’s kept me away from any writing, blogging or social media.

I will be getting back to normal now. For this blog I want normal to be at least 3 posts a week and I’d be happier with a post daily. We’ll see how that goes for the rest of the summer.